The New Republic

Bloom-Bama? [Gawker]: "Barack Obama is in town, and early this morning he broke bread with Mayor Bloomberg! Everyone is very, very excited! What could this possibly indicate? A potential Obamaloomberg ticket?" READ MORE >>

Out With It [James Joyner, Outside the Beltway]: " The blogosphere is abuzz over the revelation that Keith Kerr, the 74-year-old retired Army colonel and California National Guard general who stunned the candidates in last night’s YouTube debate with the announcement that he was openly gay, works for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign." READ MORE >>

Supreme Confidence [Kevin Drum, Political Animal]: "Hillary only has five offices up and running so far in the Feb. 5 states? Why? She has plenty of money, she has a top notch campaign operation, ten weeks isn't very long for regional offices to get fully staffed and functional, and she can't possibly believe with any confidence that the whole thing is going to be over by the end of January. So why wait so long to begin serious local organizing?" READ MORE >>

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Campaigning for his wife this afternoon in Iowa, Bill Clinton threw an asterisk over his position on the Iraq war: "Even though I approved of Afghanistan and opposed Iraq from the beginning," said Clinton, "I still resent that I was not asked or given the opportunity to support those soldiers." READ MORE >>

Bad Barbra! [Don Frederick, Top of the Ticket]: "It's no surprise that Hillary Clinton's ever-vigilant campaign would unveil a celebrity endorsement today -- an announcement that might distract attention from the latest developments in Oprah Winfrey's high-profile embrace of Barack Obama. READ MORE >>

Door Buster [Foon Rhee, Political Intelligence]: "Since anyone can submit a video to YouTube to pose a question for the Republican presidential debate this week, Democrat Chris Dodd is taking advantage to ask about protecting the Constitution." PAC-man [Greg Sargent, Talking Points Memo]: READ MORE >>

Second Amendment cases in the Supreme Court have numbered only two in the last century. After weeks of speculation that the 1939 Miller v. California would keep this streak alive, the court agreed to hear DC v. Heller, a challenge to the challenge of DC's stringent gun ban (which Sen. Jim Webb discovered the hard way), and the best chance for advocates of gun ownership to make flat-out bans unconstitutional.If the lower-court decision is upheld, we may credit one man: Robert A. READ MORE >>

Yesterday afternoon, Barack Obama made a speech in Silicon Valley on innovation, outlining a plan to create a national technology czar, or "chief technology officer"--likely some 28-year old techie whiz kid, or kids--charged with making president Obama's wildest web fantasies a reality. The venue was no mistake--he spoke at Google headquarters in Mountain View, a petri dish of hyper-wealthy READ MORE >>

Dark Horses Running [Roddie Burris, The State]: "The key question … is whether the Democrats’ big two, U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York and U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, have already stripped the field of all its available oxygen."   READ MORE >>